Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Who could ever hate us? We are so awesome and we are even polite enough to let everyone know it!

A few weeks ago I met a senior vice president at a DC public relations firm. It being the post-season, we got talking baseball. He’s a huge fan. Season tickets to the Nationals. Weekend season tickets to the Orioles. He even moved to the Navy Yard area of DC so he could walk to games.

When I told him I’m a die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fan, the mood shifted. “I loathe the Cardinals,” he said. “That’s impossible,” I replied. Nobody hates the Cardinals. We’re a well-run organization with strong values. Our fans are the best in baseball. Hating the Cardinals is like punching your mother. Even if you were tempted, you just wouldn’t do it.

But that Sunday at our church in Virginia, I was talking to the kindergarten teacher at our Lutheran school. She’s a die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fan. She introduced me to a new mother at church whose allegiance to the Cards was showcased on the diaper bag she was carrying around. As we all chatted about the Pirates series, the kindergarten teacher’s husband (a Nationals fan) interjected that he hated us and the Cardinals.

I found it jarring. Two people in the same week saying something I’d never heard in more than three decades of being a Cardinals fan….

And, yes, it is frustrating to see a team play as well as the Cardinals do, with such a great team relationship as they have, year after year — if it’s not your team. No one says you have to love them. But you can’t hate them. It just reflects poorly on you. If the Cards were cheating their way to these victories, if they were buying them, if they were rude on and off the field … then fine. But in the absence of that, hatred is not a healthy option….

If you hate the Cardinals because you need a few more months to recover from them beating your team, that’s fine. But if you hate the Cardinals because, like Drew Magary, you hate Midwesterners and their casseroles and churchgoing, you may want to reconsider.

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If you hate the Cardinals because you need a few more months to recover from them beating your team, that’s fine. But if you hate the Cardinals because, like Drew Magary, you hate Midwesterners and their casseroles and churchgoing,

I have no problem hating the Cardinals. Lived in St Louis for years, hated them then. Moved away, still hate them. Love the Midwest, like the Royals and KC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee... but hate the Cardinals.

The Cardinals are that smug guy you know who does things well and will let you know about it... not overtly, but in a way that still screams "look at how awesome I am". They're that guy you'd really love to punch in the face one day, or who you secretly chuckle at when he bombs the big meeting or his kid gets knocked out in the spelling bee. They're the franchise equivalent of Steve Garvey.

Not a Yankees fan. You can call Yankees fans a lot of things, but I don't think they widely believe that _the very act of rooting for the Yankees_ is a sign of superiority. They just think the Yankees are better than your team.

edit: I see you live in NYC. How have you never encountered any of the many thousands of Yankees fans who think that all things Yankee are the epitome of class, which by extension makes themselves great people for rooting for the Yankees?

The city sucks, and was rated as one of the most depressed cities around recently. So we have to like the cardinals if you live in the city, their isn't much else to do, well besides all the awesome free stuff.

The rest of the midwest is all cause of kmox and it's 50kw broadcast tower for years. People in mid missouri may not understand it though.

This whole article is every single thing that makes the Cardinals insufferable.

Seriously, the excerpt reads like it's from the Onion.

ETA: The title of the article is from Mean Girls where Lacey Chabert's character is trying to make the word "fetch" happen. Later in the film, the scene below happens when all the girls are apologizing for their misdeeds and it's pretty appropriate.

Let me be clear -- I don't hate the Cardinals. I would, however, take some small pleasure in watching them fall short of the World Series this year because I've personally encountered more and more Cardinals fans* (especially since last year's NLDS victory over the Nats) that espouse the following:

2. The Cardinals' virtuous actions are actually a reflection of their humble, sainted and knowledgeable fans.

Essentially, a lot of Cardinal fans honestly believe that a team of multimillionaire professional athletes has been molded into winners by the passive influence of the "Best Fans in Baseball"(TM) and their midwestern values.

This obnoxious, passive-aggressive humble-bragging is perfectly reflected in this article ("...the organization and community of St. Louis does aim to promote good sportsmanship, a value the club has spent many decades cultivating." Ack. Really?). It's a particular phenomenon I've only seen from fans of three professional sports teams: the Cardinals, the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I have no bad feelings for Adam Wainwright or Carlos Beltran or Yadier Molina (or Aaron Rodgers, or Troy Polamalu) -- I like all those guys. But when fans of those teams play the "We're Just Better People" card ... yeah, I get a little kick out of seeing those teams lose.**

* Disclaimer #1: I've never seen this behavior from any Cardinals fan on BBTF.
** Disclaimer #2: I don't think the Cards are going to lose this year, so the joke's on me, right? I will , however, be very happy to see Carlos Beltran get a ring.

IIRC, BFIB came about from a Sporting News Article where they named St. Louis the best sports city(or maybe their fans the best fans) in an article that they ran every year(with almost always varying cities) Cardinals fans co-opted it as their own and haven't let it die.

RC, BFIB came about from a Sporting News Article where they named St. Louis the best sports city(or maybe their fans the best fans) in an article that they ran every year (with almost always varying cities) Cardinals fans co-opted it as their own and bitter fans of lesser teams haven't let it die.

"you could never make up for what happened in the 1985 World Series — literally the worst call in sports history —"

..... that makes Cardinals fans so loathsome.

Up 3-2 in the World Series, leading by a run in the 9th inning of Game 6 - and one umpiring call lands Jorge Orta on first base against their closer. That's it. 3 outs to go, runner is 3 bases away from even tying the game - but the Cardinals #### the bed the rest of the 9th inning, then don't even bother to show up in Game 7, practically, for what seemed to be the express purpose of earning the privilege of being able to whine about it for all of eternity.

and "literally the worst call in sports history" ? - the douche meter just exploded.

What galls about the whole BFiB™ thing is this: anybody can be a "good fan" when your team wins all the time. It's the smug assumption that Cards fans' innate awesomeness has something to do with the product the franchise puts on the field that rankles.

The Orta call robbed the Cardinals of one out. They only ever ended up getting one out in that ninth inning, and even that out -- a bunt -- was made on purpose by the other team. Even if Orta had been properly called out, that inning would have kept going until KC won. The Denkinger call didn't cost them ####.

You have a valid point, but the Cardinals have been using some version of BFIB as a marketing ploy for a while. Every sports franchise wants to make the community feel like it has a special connection with the team. The Cardinals have succeeded, in large part by winning a boat-load of games.

The Orta call robbed the Cardinals of one out. They only ever ended up recording one out in that ninth inning, and even that out -- a bunt -- was made on purpose by the other team. Even if Orta had been called out, that inning would have kept going until KC won. The Orta call didn't cost them ####.

Well now, I wouldn't go that far, but they fell apart like a cheap toy immediately after the call, which can't be blamed on Don Denkinger. Clark's error, Porter's passed ball, etc. And of course, they didn't show up for Game 7 except for the purpose of getting Herzog and Andujar ejected.

For the record, I have been to St. Louis many times and I really like the city as a place to visit. I think its quite underrated.

RC, BFIB came about from a Sporting News Article where they named St. Louis the best sports city(or maybe their fans the best fans) in an article that they ran every year (with almost always varying cities) Cardinals fans co-opted it as their own

It should be noted that The Sporting News was based in....you guessed it, St. Louis!

I found it jarring. Two people in the same week saying something I’d never heard in more than three decades of being a Cardinals fan….

This is what is hilarious. Cardinals fans are always so shocked to find out that not everyone loves and admires them. I mean Yankees fans are loathed, but they own it. They love it. They call themselves the Evil Empire. Red Sox fans are pretty loathed now but I think most fans get why - they're successful.

Cardinals fans are the smart kid in the classroom who loves to tell everyone how smart he is and thinks by virtue of his intelligence, he must also be popular, then is stunned to find out everyone in the class secretly hates him.

I see you live in NYC. How have you never encountered any of the many thousands of Yankees fans who think that all things Yankee are the epitome of class, which by extension makes themselves great people for rooting for the Yankees?

BS. The line was "fanship [being] a sign of moral superiority." Yankee fans do not consider themselves morally superior. Socially, mentally, physically and financially superior, yes. But Morals? This is New York, home of Wall Street and Madison Avenue. Morals are for suckers.

Who would be the least hated team? I can't imagine anyone hating the Padres. Tiny media market, West Coast. Dodgers don't seem to take them seriously. Chargers are the tragic team in that town. Padres snuck in a couple WS, more than their history probably deserves.

When I told him I’m a die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fan, the mood shifted. “I loathe the Cardinals,” he said. “That’s impossible,” I replied. Nobody hates the Cardinals. We’re a well-run organization with strong values. Our fans are the best in baseball.

As I've told my friends who are Cardinal fans, I admire the franchise and the way it's run. The thing I hate is the sanctimonious blowhards who pretend like they're a part of the team because they bought a Yadier Molina jersey.

4. Jay Z Posted: October 16, 2013 at 08:09 PM (#4575167)
Who would be the least hated team? I can't imagine anyone hating the Padres. Tiny media market, West Coast. Dodgers don't seem to take them seriously. Chargers are the tragic team in that town. Padres snuck in a couple WS, more than their history probably deserves.

The A's or the Pirates, if I had to make a bet. The A's get that small town feel, while I don't see how anybody can hate the Pirates after nearly three decades of futility, and finally making it to the post season this year.

Every time the A's get knocked out of the playoffs, or miss the playoffs entirely, we get inundated with tons of gleeful articles about it. Lot's of people are rooting against the A's. Hard.

You are referencing a gaggle of idiotic sportswriters, Fancy Pants, not legions of baseball fans. And, other than one or two BTF bucketheads from 2010-11, I now of no one who chortles whenever the A's don't make the postseason.

On the one hand, I don't like seeing teams buy their way to a championship.

On the other hand, I've never seen a Dodgers fan make an obnoxious top ten list about how it is everyone's duty as a good fan to admire the Dodgers

In conclusion, go Dodgers. Tie-breaker was: likelihood of a Dodger player driving drunk and killing someone (probably approximately the national rate) much much lower than likelihood of a Cardinal player doing the same (even money)

Oh, and my primary objection to Ben's list is I don't think St. Louis is a Rust Belt city.

It isn't? What is it then? My eyes have seen disappearing manufacturing jobs all around me. The city of St Louis proper is a hellhole with a school system that the state of Missouri deemed unworthy of certification mostly because a cool 9% of kids read at grade level. It's not that the state has super high standards either. Kids who go to the city schools are almost certain to be behind the rest of the country in education, that is if they survive the deadly surroundings. The formerly booming North Side is dead since the loss of manufacturing jobs here. If this isn't a Rust Belt city, what is?

I was thinking that the other night. I think the Cards/Dodgers/Tigers are all locks for that distinction, while the Sox would battle with the Yankees for the final ticket.

Really? There are many things to like about the Red Sox but the uniforms aren't among them. Clearly the Green and Gold Home Whites of the A's are among the Top 4 (OK I don't expect many to agree on this)

Cities in the Rust Belt. The Rust Belt is the steel-industry intensive cities around the Great Lakes and parts of the Northeast. That's just what it is. St. Louis may have suffered a somewhat similar fate as Cleveland, Detroit, etc., (then again, so have a lot of places) but it's not generally considered part of the Rust Belt.

Really? There are many things to like about the Red Sox but the uniforms aren't among them. Clearly the Green and Gold Home Whites of the A's are among the Top 4 (OK I don't expect many to agree on this)

I'm not the biggest fan, but the Sox home unis generally score well among observers of all things sartorial. But I'm with you, I'd actually choose the A's over both NY and Boston (had forgotten about Oakland earlier).

"you could never make up for what happened in the 1985 World Series — literally the worst call in sports history —"

..... that makes Cardinals fans so loathsome.

Up 3-2 in the World Series, leading by a run in the 9th inning of Game 6 - and one umpiring call lands Jorge Orta on first base against their closer. That's it. 3 outs to go, runner is 3 bases away from even tying the game - but the Cardinals #### the bed the rest of the 9th inning, then don't even bother to show up in Game 7, practically, for what seemed to be the express purpose of earning the privilege of being able to whine about it for all of eternity.

I don't have anything particular against the Cardinals in general, but that 1985 team was far and away the most loathsome team in history. You couldn't match the combined creepiness of Clark, Andujar, Tudor, Coleman, and Herzog in a million years.

I don't have anything particular against the Cardinals in general, but that 1985 team was far and away the most loathsome team in history. You couldn't match the combined creepiness of Clark, Andujar, Tudor, Coleman, and Herzog in a million years.

It isn't? What is it then? My eyes have seen disappearing manufacturing jobs all around me. The city of St Louis proper is a hellhole with a school system that the state of Missouri deemed unworthy of certification mostly because a cool 9% of kids read at grade level. It's not that the state has super high standards either. Kids who go to the city schools are almost certain to be behind the rest of the country in education, that is if they survive the deadly surroundings. The formerly booming North Side is dead since the loss of manufacturing jobs here. If this isn't a Rust Belt city, what is?

That's what I don't get about the "midwestern wholesomeness" angle. Seems like you should fall out of the top 10 in murder rate for a couple of years before you start going Norman Rockwell on everybody.

You couldn't match the combined creepiness of Clark, Andujar, Tudor, Coleman, and Herzog in a million years.

I don't know, I think you can make a good argument that the creepiness was matched in 999,999 years less than that.

The team that supplanted the Cards as NL pennant winners had no shortage of creeps (Dykstra, Backman, Mitchell and Knight, heading the cast, with Straw, Doc, Carter and Hernandez appearing on some lists as well.

"Creepy" is a term that I associate with tweens, teens, and 20-somethings to express their fear at encountering something new to them. What do you old codgers mean by it?

For myself, I just hate the Cardinals for ruining my sports wet dream in the NLDS last year, by throwing the shortcomings of the Nationals right in their face.

I prefer to avoid specific people who have done me wrong rather than labeling wide swaths of same. Generalizing the attributes of a few to the entire group to which they belong is much like what was named in post #63. I thought that was frowned upon here?

Any fanbase that anoints itself as the best fans in baseball deserves to be hated. St. Louis, like every other city in 'Merica, loves a winner. They are no better or worse than any other place. They have a terrific front office, like a handful of other teams. Accident of birth, whatever.

I'm pretty sure it was Wilbert Harrison who was goin' to Kansas City. That's okay, when you get to be our age (60+), it is difficult to remember everything, there is only so much room for stuff in the brain.

I don't hate the Cards, but I can understand why some people do. The attitude of this writer is particularly loathesome.

"I don't have anything particular against the Cardinals in general, but that 1985 team was far and away the most loathsome team in history. You couldn't match the combined creepiness of Clark, Andujar, Tudor, Coleman, and Herzog in a million years."

Clark I get. Coleman had that firecracker incident, so yeah. Andujar just seemed like a weird but entertaining character. What's so bad about Tudor? I don't remember anything pro or con about him off the field. He was just a guy who had no fastball but really, really knew how to pitch.

I hate the Cardinals more than I hate the Yankees, the Cowboys, the Fighting Irish, the Dodgers, and the Mets combined. I respect the Cardinals as an organization and I love Stan Musial like any rational American, and I actually do like the Cardinal fans as people that I 'know' digitally on BBTF - but I hate the Cardinals.

I believe Busch Stadium should be bulldozed, preferably while the 50k most earnest and morally superior Cardinals fans are inside. I think the earth should then be salted after the demolition. I hope some sort of supernatural or metaphysical advance is made whereby it is proven that the Cardinals' historic success is due to their double-dealings with beelzebub... I hope it involves sexual relations similar to those that South Park at one time liked to show between Saddam Hussein and Satan. I hope this causes MLB to vacate every Cardinal title in its history. I will then drink the tears of Cardinal fans, young and old.

That's what I don't get about the "midwestern wholesomeness" angle. Seems like you should fall out of the top 10 in murder rate for a couple of years before you start going Norman Rockwell on everybody.

The people in the ballparks in places like St. Louis and Detroit aren't citizens of the central cities. They're suburbanites and outstaters.

Only if "perfect" is equivalent to "boring" (or to "absent".) Give me distinct seasons any time, with bright fall colors and lots of winter snow.

My interest in baseball coincides with the final third of Musial's career, so I find it easy to like the Cardinals in general, and cannot understand why Zonk's opinion of today's team is so strongly opposite of his (appropriate) feelings toward The Man and his legacy. But then I'm not all that swift...

I didn't have any strong feelings one way or another about the Cardinals until La Russa. Since then the Cardinals have been near the top of teams I dislike the most.

I don't dislike the Yankees as much as I once did after George died. Kind of took the oomph out of it as did 2004. Somebody said they disliked the Rays more than the Yankees in another thread and most disagreed. I think that's a true statement for me as well. Maddon and the Rays irritate me as a Red Sox fan. I dislike their stadium, Maddon's smugness, the fact that an excellent team gets no support, and that they have been mostly better than the Red Sox lately despite budget constraints. Also Carl Crawford. Never forget Carl Crawford. I make no claims to rationality, but seriously. Carl Crawford. Non wife beating division, probably my least favorite Red Sox player of all time. Free agent, I get it, but at times I half thought he was more of a double agent.

I don't have anything particular against the Cardinals in general, but that 1985 team was far and away the most loathsome team in history. You couldn't match the combined creepiness of Clark, Andujar, Tudor, Coleman, and Herzog in a million years.

they were so loathsome that an inanimate fan* attacked Tudor

*fan meaning the metal kind with rotating blades, not a person

And don't forget the Busch Stadium tarp that crippled Coleman on behalf of fans all over the nation.

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You couldn't match the combined creepiness of Clark, Andujar, Tudor, Coleman, and Herzog in a million years.

I don't know, I think you can make a good argument that the creepiness was matched in 999,999 years less than that.

The team that supplanted the Cards as NL pennant winners had no shortage of creeps (Dykstra, Backman, Mitchell and Knight, heading the cast, with Straw, Doc, Carter and Hernandez appearing on some lists as well.

Straw, Doc and Hernandez were merely dime a dozen druggies of the sort found on scores of teams throughout the years, and Mitchell gained total redemption with his Vicks Vap-o-Rub commment**. I'll grant you Dykstra even with his incredible entertainment value to BTF, and yeah, Carter can be a bit Garveyish, but you'll have to bring me up to speed about Backman and Knight. Collectively the Mets were arrogant, but that hardly sets them apart from the crowd.

But other than Andujar, which of those five Cardinals had any redeeming value other than baseball talent? If you want to make it a close call, then surely Herzog's neverending whining about one blown call has to be the tiebreaker.

**He said he used to swallow it, rather than rub it on, because "It makes me feel like a champion." Now how in the hell can you hate a guy like that?

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What's so bad about Tudor?

Nothing other than that he was a thoroughly sour human being who walked around with a permanent giant chip on his shoulder. His personality would have made Joe Dimaggio look like Ernie Banks by comparison.

Nope, not one iota of racism in this Post-Dispatch columnist's effort:

Hey, baseball is the primary religion in Our Town. Out here it’s a place to be seen, maybe flash some gang signs on the matrix and bat a beach ball.

Us wholesome, primarily white Midwesterners actually watch the baseball game. You hedonistic West Coasters just play around and some of you black fellers flash gang signs because that's all I know about LA is that you have gangs.

I'd say like the Padres or Rockies are least hated. Mariners might be up there. A's are still kinda hated from when they were a dominant team in the late 80s and some fans may still hate them from the 70s. Oakland teams are just easy to hate.

I don't get all the St. Louis city bashing. The city itself has hallowed out some, but the downtown has come back quite a bit. The city suffers by being landlocked, so its city proper population is quite small, but the metro area has been growing, unlike other Rust Belt towns. The city still has some cool areas like Central West End, Forest Park, Soulard, the Landing is okay I guess, and the Bottle District next to the stadium is finally on track I believe. Its a nice town, just snotty fans.

I'd say like the Padres or Rockies are least hated. Mariners might be up there.

I'll bet if you could rank teams according to how much they're hated, it would almost perfectly correlate to their success over the past few decades. It's pretty hard to work up much hatred towards teams that make the postseason about once or twice a decade.

I'm a Giants fan, and I have a real conundrum in that my utter loathing for the Cardinals is making me consider rooting for the Dodgers to beat them.

I understand it's hard... but it's the right thing to do. Never to the extent I hate the Cardinals, but once upon a time when the Astros weren't pitiful -- us Cubs fans used to have a near-term/short-term hatred for the Astros (as the Cubs/Astros were simultaneously battling in the NL Central).

Obviously, there was that dreadful WS that will not be mentioned from a few years back where the Astros played the White Sox. I found it necessary to put direct rivalries aside and focus on the most evil entity at hand, the White Sox... I was mostly hoping for an asteroid to impact the stadium before the series was decided, but that was a remote possibility.

I understand that the Cubs/Astros rivalry was rather limited in time/scope, and that the Dodgers/Giants rivalry/hatred is any many ways, more akin to the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry... and as such, you might very well be tempted to root for the Cardinals because of that.

However, I must plead with you to understand that the Cardinals are a far, far worse and more insidious evil. They are far, far more dangerous in the current chronology -- I mean, gunning for their 4th WS in 10 years?

In the near-term, the right thing to do is set aside the justified hatred for your ancient and eternal enemy and focus on hatred of the greater evil.... Think it like the time Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper teamed up or the Cylon rebels and Colonials getting together.... sometimes, such unthinkable - temporary - alliances are necessary. Sometimes you have to consider the basic needs of humanity and humankind -- the very planet -- in determining who to root for. Immediately after the next 2 games - you can go right back to wishing ill on the Dodgers... but for two more games, it is imperative that we as a nation come together in wishing the Cardinals ill. Do it for your children. Do it for your grandchildren.

I'm a Giants fan, and I have a real conundrum in that my utter loathing for the Cardinals is making me consider rooting for the Dodgers to beat them.

No. I understand what zonk is saying above, but come on. If you are a SF Giants fan (and really, why would you lie) then you know these things to be true. 1) Hate is hard for residents of Northern California, it does not come naturally. 2) Southern California, and especially the Dodgers, exists just to harness and clarify the hate that is present.

Hey my three least favorite teams are Dodgers, Yankees, and then Cardinals. But really hate, that is reserved for Dodgers.

I'll grant you Dykstra even with his incredible entertainment value to BTF, and yeah, Carter can be a bit Garveyish, but you'll have to bring me up to speed about Backman and Knight.

Backman? The DUI-drawing, deadbeat, domestic-violence suspect who lied to the Diamondbacks about his past and then whined that he's been treated unfairly because no one else will hire him to be their manager. You need a refresher course on that guy?

Mitchell has a healthy string of battery incidents that really rub out any Vapo Rub comments. Knight is just Tudor in different colors.

What seems to be completely lost in this Cardinals BFIB claim is that their moral superiority must totally ignore drunk driving and marijuana use. You have LaRussa, Hancock, Kile, Freese, etc., with problems.

I live in Missouri, and to listen to the abuse that LaRussa took from these fans was amazing. According to many Sports Radio callers and fans I spoke/listened to, LaRussa was a terrible manager who did way too much and didn't know what he was doing.

The fans do actually believe they are part of the team. One fan I spoke to over the weekend claimed the team was always good because they only look for "high-character" guys. When I mentioned Shelby Miller's problems, he claimed that STL almost released him because of his drinking issues, and that they don't let him pitch in the playoffs because of his personal issues, and that is why they are so successful.

The Rockies have the Christian thing working against them. What about the Royals?

The Rockies "Christian thing" is totally overblown from what I can tell. I mean, I've lived here 15 years, I read and hear about them just about every day, and until that first USA Today (I think) article hit in 2007 I literally had no idea they regarded themselves as any more "Christian" than any other team. Nor have I seen any sign of it since. They do seem to place an emphasis on having good "character" guys, and they definitely make an effort to be community oriented and fan friendly (all of which I appreciate), but as far as being overtly religious....Nah, not that I can see. If they are they're doing a pretty good job of keeping it under wraps.

Wait, isn't Drew Magary a midwesterner? I thought he lives in Minnesota. At the very least he's lived there. He's a #### writer with sub-Bleacher Report talent, but he's still a midwesterner.

Magary lives in Maryland and went to college in Maine (after a year at Michigan). He's a Vikings fan, so maybe he lived there as a kid or something. I think he's a pretty good writer myself -- his book on parenting was quite funny. Haven't read his dystopian sci-fi novel but it got pretty good reviews.